From the Other Side
by Utsuha Moon
Summary: [Role Reversal AU] The worst time of day to be woken up would be an hour or so before daybreak, just before the birds start chirping and the coolness of the night disappears. The worst way to be woken up is by a screaming horde of Vikings armed with spears and axes running around outside your house. Sadly, this lovely day started out this way for Toothless.
1. Worst Wake-Up Call Ever

**Disclaimer: I do not own How to Train Your Dragon or derivatives thereof.**

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_This is Berk. It's twelve days North of Hopeless, and a few degrees South of Freezing to Death. It's located solidly on the Meridian of Misery._

_Sure, some people hear these directions and cower for fear of their lives, but not the people of Berk. One, it's because we were the ones that came up with those names. Two, Berkians are strong and relentless, perhaps stubborn._

_We're Vikings._

_We're self-sustainable and efficient-we fish for our seafood, grow our own vegetables, and build our own houses. All of us are skilled in a wide range of arts and crafts, such as the Art of Beheading a Dragon. _

_Oh-I forgot to mention one tiny little detail: Dragons are our sworn enemies._

_And my name is Toothless._

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The worst time of day to be woken up would be an hour or so before daybreak, just before the birds start chirping and the coolness of the night disappears. The worst way to be woken up is by a screaming horde of Vikings armed with spears and axes running around outside your house, followed by having your house set on fire by a raging Deadly Nadder. Both happening at the same time would surely result in a disastrous early morning.

Sadly, this lovely day started out this way for Toothless.

If his house wasn't on fire, the young lad would've grunted, turned over, and continued his perfect dream of peace. He didn't care that he might die-he was moody and _tired_.

"Dragons!" Toothless heard his neighbor scream.

It was a beautiful wake-up call.

The teen promptly jumped out of bed and grabbed his helmet and axe, ready for battle (not that he would fight dragons-he was still on fire duty, but an axe could come in handy). He ran out the door, ducking a Gronkle that flew by (along with a fellow Viking clinging onto its face) and headed straight for the water reservoir located at the center of town.

"Mornin'!"

"Nice to see you out and ready!"

"Not being a lazy bum this time, are ye?"

Toothless awkwardly smiled. Even though sometimes his attitude could frustrate the entire village and he wasn't exactly _thrilled_ to run around with a bucket-full of water, he was still the pride of Berk. He was, after all, the son of the mighty chief, Stoick the Vast. Toothless might be skinny, sure, but he was lean and strong. He didn't look exactly like a Viking, but he had more than proved himself over the past decade (giving Snotlout a black eye for picking on him probably helped his reputation as this no-bullshit type of child).

He ran past the forge while saluting Gobber, who was tirelessly working to meet the many Berkians' demands. That man definitely needed a helper one of these days. Taking a right turn, the teen arrived at the reservoir, and didn't wait a moment before throwing his axe onto the ground (it was made of wood and metal-it'll survive), grabbing a bucket, and dunking it into the water. It took a certain amount of strength to be able to haul a gallon or so of liquid around, and even more determination to drag this load several more yards to a burning building. He would complain, but Astrid would probably roll her eyes and punch him into moving faster.

"Don't you dare escape your duty this time," Toothless heard a hiss from behind.

"Hello to you too," he replied as snarkily as possible.

She glared at him.

"I'm already here," he sighed. "With a bucket. Does it look like I'm avoiding anything?"

"There is such a thing as 'false hope'." Did Astrid really have no faith in him? "You could be pretending to do your job for now, but then hide in one of those thick bushes for the rest of the morning." The answer was yes.

"That's a great idea!" He could always roll in dirt and run around to make himself look scorched and exhausted. "Thank you, Astrid." And with that said, Toothless ran off with his bucket of water, ignoring the young girl's commands to "get back there" or something.

Toothless silently cackled.

He'd probably receive a new bruise within the next hour or so, but it was well worth it.

Meanwhile, the dragons continued their raid on the isolated village. They took fish that were salted and hung out the dry, while some dug their claws into a sheep, and all of them deadly and an enemy to humans. Toothless had barely managed to put out the fire that was starting in the chicken stable, but a rogue fireball destroyed the roof and rendered his efforts futile.

"Are you serious?!" The chickens were now panicking, chaos running amok. A second fire blast crashed through one of the wooden walls, and now those pesky birds were free to run however and to wherever they wanted. Sadly, they all chose different directions. And now Toothless was on chicken-catching duty.

"Ugh!" Toothless grunted as he dove for one chicken. "Stupid bird!" He was met with a face-full of dirt and a handful of white feathers, but no chicken.

Well, Toothless shouldn't really worry about a lack of eggs. Honestly, he hasn't seen one chicken taken during the dragon raids. Perhaps it was due to the fact that these birds were too fast and too small for an overgrown lizard to capture? Besides, after a day or two outside, these farm animals usually came back on their own-the stable was a great place to stay, after all. It was just a difficult feat to explain to the rest of the village how he, Toothless, managed to set loose all of their chickens (it wasn't his fault). Too bad, so sad; the teen had to move on.

"Night fury!" Toothless heard some weird whistling noise and someone yell from a distance. It was soon followed by a stream of, "Get down," and "Aaaaaaah!"

The boy looked up at the sky, holding onto his bucket as though it was an indestructible shield. He's heard stories about night furies, the so-called "Unholy Offspring of Lighting and Death Itself". Nobody knew what they looked like, and nobody knew what they were capable of. What's worse, night furies were disgustingly accurate with their shots.

As though the Gods wanted to prove Toothless' point, the tower on which his father and other men currently stood exploded in a blue-ish purple blast. The night fury got them. _Oh no._ Toothless was sure that such a blast couldn't have done any damage to anyone, since the tower took the brunt of it, but still, he worried.

The teen ducked behind bushes and scorched houses, making his way to the tower that the dragon had just destroyed (he luckily passed by the water reservoir, so he made sure to grab his axe). But then, he heard the whistling noise again. _The night fury. _

Toothless stood still amidst the deserted town (people were running _away_ from where the night fury struck) and observed the night sky. The noise stopped, but he could see _something_ blocking the stars in the distance. The shape was constantly moving, but it circled around in a predictable pattern. So, like any stupid teenagers would do, Toothless aimed the axe in his hand toward the dark mass.

He leaned back, eyes locked on his target, and launched his weapon upward.

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**That's it for this chapter! **

**I have no idea where this idea came from, but I thought: **_**Hey, wouldn't it be fun if I wrote an au in which Toothless the Viking had to drag around Hiccup the (runt) Dragon? Just imagine the shenanigans that might take place!**_

**Nobody said "no don't do that" so... huehuehue. :D**

**Please review and tell me if you would like to see more!**


	2. Failure

**Here is chapter two. Enjoy! C:**

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Toothless watched as his trusted axe zip through the air, almost as though the weapon was disobeying the laws of gravity. Perhaps its spinning motion gave the boy the illusion that it was gaining speed and altitude? Whatever the case was, his eyes followed the axe as it neared the peak of its motion, waiting for the sound of an impact and that dragon's agonized screech. _Any moment now… _That was when Toothless noticed the axe arc for another target: the ground.

The throw stunk. _Great._

The axe lacked power and momentum. Toothless didn't throw it with enough force to truly take down a dragon in mid-flight-he was a measly little fourteen year old boy, not a big, burly Viking like his father. But, like any prideful teenagers, Toothless looked for something else to blame for this failure. The night fury most likely just dodged it. After all, only a really stupid dragon would stay still and let a Viking kill them.

Yeah, that was it.

Or, maybe, it was the darkness that could be to blame! At night, it was especially hard to judge the depth of an object and how far something really was. A dragon's dark figure plastered against the starry night sky gave little to no clue to the true whereabouts of the creature-Toothless simply misjudged the distance between them. But, this justification sort of put the blame back on himself again. _Hm. _The dragon dodged it. _Let's go with that. _

_Thunk._ Looks like someone's axe finally decided to revisit Earth.

"Who threw thi-Toothless!" the teen heard someone yell from afar. Did his weapon somehow land near someone or something?

The answer was yes.

And that someone was his father.

If Toothless made the effort to look closer that where the axe was located, he would understand that the blade had cozily embedded itself into a large wooden structure, roughly seven feet from the ground. Which was also roughly his father's height. _Dear Odin… _Stoick was now storming over to where his son stood, one hand firmly gripped around his hammer while the other, Toothless' axe.

Toothless' accuracy was wonky in that he couldn't hit a target the size of his house, but was perfectly capable of potentially hitting his father in the face.

"What's the meaning of this?" Stoick demanded, tone firm and eyes angry, now towering over his (cowering) son.

"I-uh... It was a tiny mistake. Y-you see, I, uh, kinda..." Toothless fumbled for his words. "I saw, I mean, we all saw, but I had a _clear_ saw-" Toothless was starting to lose his ability to form coherent sentences. "-I had a clear shot at the night fury and I blew my chance."

Stoick was speechless for a second. "Are you insane?!" Yup, he was definitely angry. "There is a reason why you're only allowed a bucket right now. Throwing an axe? What if you hurt someone? You know your aim is the worst!"

"Well, if you put it that way, it kinda makes me sound incompetent," Toothless retorted.

"You are!" Stoick immediately responded, obviously frustrated.

"Gee, thanks." The good ol' Viking bluntness. No need to consider each other's feelings or anything useless like that.

Stoick sighed. "Look, son, there is a reason why a Viking must go through dragon training before being allowed to fight dragons. Handing an untrained Viking a weapon is like giving them the death sentence: it makes them feel a false sense of pride, as though with that thing, they could take on the world." Great, his dad was now giving him the speech. "But-"

"But in reality they can't and will die and potentially drag down everybody else with them. Yeah, I heard it all." This wasn't the time for any lecturing, so Toothless quickly summarized the rest of it for Stoick. "But dad, I really did have a clear shot!"

The chief weighed his son's weapon in his hand. "This axe won't do enough damage to a dragon to kill one. Let's say you did hit the night fury. You now have its full attention. It is angry. What are you going to do? You're not incompetent, but you are _untrained_. How will you protect yourself from the wrath of a night fury?"

"That is..." Toothless began, "a very good point." He was perhaps slightly too over-confident.

"No one has ever killed a night fury, Toothless." Stoick handed the axe to his son. "Don't try to do the impossible; it'll just get you killed."

Toothless wanted to disagree with what his father had just said, but found himself incapable of formulating a good argument for his cause without making him sound like an idiot. The teen firmly believed that any dragons could be conquered if one set their mind to it, and he was pretty sure that everybody thought certain dragon species were untouchable until that one person managed to take down one of those beasts: there will always be a "first" to anything. Toothless truly believed that he could be the first to kill a night fury. "Yeah, I kn-" The boy's sentence was cut short by the prompt arrival of a Viking.

"Chief!" At this point, both father and son had forgotten that a battle was raging elsewhere in Berk. That is, until this fellow Viking jogged up to Stoick. "The dragons are retreating. We have captured three Deadly Nadders, a Monstrous Nightmare, and several Gronkles."

"Casualties?"

"None, sir."

"Damages?"

"Not assessed yet." Toothless didn't think anyone needed: a look around and one would understand that literally _every_ building had been scorched.

"Alright. I'll go check the docks. Go tell the others to put those beasts with the rest." Yup. Here was Stoick the Chief, doing chiefly things. "And Toothless-" the man finally paid attention to his son awkwardly standing there "-stay out of trouble."

And thus Toothless was left alone with nothing but his axe. _Ugh. _Talking with his overprotective old man always tired him out.

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The dragon was furious, embarrassed, humiliated, and traumatized.

The dragon was also slightly over-dramatic.

He was just soaring over this rocky island, minding his own business and doing his job, when a Viking weapon shaped like two (very fat) burnt bananas stuck together came flying at him. Of course, it missed, but just the _thought_ of a human even seeing him made his stomach twist and turn. How could he call himself the Dragon of the Night if the night didn't even keep him from discovered? Ugh.

He was a failure.

In three hundred years, nobody had laid eyes on his kind. No longer! And now, many others would laugh at him for his inability to be a dragon, and then kick him out because he had _one_ job, which was to keep everyone safe, and failed. Practically half of his comrades got captured or killed by those revolting humans, and it was all his fault. Stupid. So stupid!

Might as well exile himself right now to save everyone some trouble.

Which was exactly what he did, turning around and landing on the nearest island he could find. Life was not kind to this small night fury.

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**That is all! I didn't expect this fic to be as popular as it is, so I was kinda surprised. Nevertheless I got writing.**

**Some responses to reviews:**

**Thank you, grespeciatto, Gingehfish, The Glass Sea, a random person, Guest, and Niendil for your kind reviews. c: **

**a random person: In my mind, Toothless is the perfect athlete and Viking, while Hiccup is the failure/runt dragon. They both think differently due to their differing personalities, and in different bodies, I believe the sequence of events would be drastically different. So in a sense, this fic also heavily diverges from the movie from the start. Even if there might not be any point to it, it could make a nice adventure, right? c:**

**Guest: huehuehue too late I already did it :D**


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